The landowner was rosy-cheeked,
Stately, planted,
Sixty years old;
The mustache is gray, long,
Well done...

Mistaking the wanderers for robbers, the landowner snatches a pistol. Having learned who they are and why they are traveling, he laughs, sits down comfortably (a pillow, a carpet, a glass of wine) and tells the story of his family. His most ancient paternal ancestor “amused the empress with wolves and foxes.” His maternal ancestor is Prince Shchepkin, who, together with Vaska Gusev, “tried to set fire to Moscow, they thought of plundering the treasury, but they were executed by death.”

Obolt-Obolduev recalls with delight the old days, his own actors, feasts, hunting, the volume of landowner power: I will have mercy on whomever I want,

I'll execute whoever I want,
Law is my desire!
The fist is my police!

He emphasizes that he punished out of kindness (“punishment - loving”), that on holidays peasants were allowed into his house for prayer. Now, the manor houses are being dismantled, gardens are being cut down, forests are being stolen, and instead of estates, “drinking houses are being set up”:

They give water to the dissolute people,
They are calling for zemstvo services,
They imprison you, teach you to read and write, -
He needs her!

He complains to the wanderers that he is called to work, but he, having lived in the village for forty years, cannot distinguish barley from rye.

As in the entire poem, this chapter reflects class contradictions, contradictions in the peasant consciousness, contradictions between the rebellious spirit of the people and the servile consciousness. Moreover, this chapter raises the question

Are the people who have received freedom happy?

The landowner Obolt-Obolduev is sincerely unhappy. Of course, “the fields are unfinished, the crops are under-seeded, there is no trace of order!” What a pity that the “boyar times” have passed, when “the landowner’s chest breathed freely and easily” and when Obolt-Obolduev could dispose of the serfs.

If you think about it and correlate Nekrasov’s poem with what awaits the Russian peasant in the future, then you can argue with the poet. It is known what the power of beggars and slaves led to, how all strong “farmers” were recorded as kulaks and destroyed, which led to the fact that Russia was forced to buy bread abroad. The bazaars and shops that were abundant in the period of Old Rus' are now filled with bad products synthesized abroad; there is practically no peasantry as such. The same fact that the poem depicts cruel tyrants does not at all mean that the majority of landowners and nobles were like that. On the contrary, they were part of the elite of the Russian people. It was the nobles who came to Senate Square, it was they who were exiled “to the depths of the Siberian ores,” where they maintained proud patience. Not drunken peasants, not peasant cattle capable only of bloody riots, but “princes of the graphic arts.”

But this point of view is highly controversial. During Nekrasov's time, the pathos of his poem was bold and innovative. Nekrasov wanted to understand why the people who received freedom were unhappy.

The poem is not finished. Seven wandering men are a symbolic image of Russia. In the work, written diligently, like a journalistic article, many social problems of that time found expression. Class contradictions (“Landowner”, “Last One”); contradictions in the peasant consciousness (the working people and the people - a drunken, ignorant crowd); contradictions between the spirituality of the people and their ignorance (the author’s dream that the man “not my lord’s stupid”, but “will carry Belinsky and Gogol from the market”, remained a dream: the current “man” carries Marinina and Dotsenko from the market mixed with Chinese rags and self-made vodka); contradictions between the rebellious spirit and slavish obedience (images of Savely and Yakov).

Images of landowners in the poem by N. A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Well in Rus'”

The problem of finding happiness is the central motive to which all events in the poem are subordinated. Question: “Who lives happily and freely in Rus'?” - the most important thing in the life of the entire peasantry of post-reform Russia. Initially, men think that being well-fed is enough to be happy. But as you get to know different characters, the concept of happiness changes. The journey on which seven temporarily obliged peasants set off in order to find the answer to the main question allows the author to introduce a variety of heroes, their biographies, stories, and detailed descriptions. Among the many heroes, the wanderers meet the landowner Obolt-Obolduev with his views on a happy life. The noble understanding of happiness is wealth, ownership of property:

It used to be that you were surrounded

Alone, like the sun in the sky,

Your villages are modest,

Your forests are dense,

Your fields are all around!

There is a fish splashing in the river:

“Fat, fat before the time!”

There a hare sneaks through the meadow:

“Walk and walk until autumn!”

Everything amused the master,

Lovingly every weed

She whispered: “I’m yours!” General submission also delighted the master’s consciousness:

And we knew honor.

Not only Russian people,

Nature itself is Russian

She submitted to us.

Will you go to the village -

The peasants fall at their feet,

You'll go through the forest dachas -

Centenary trees

The forests will bow down!

Will you go to the arable land, the field -

The whole field is ripe

Creeps at the feet of the masters,

Caresses the ears and eyes!

Obolt-Obolduev reveled in his power over the people who belonged to him: There is no contradiction in anyone, Whom I want, I will have mercy, Whom I want, I will execute. The law is my desire! The fist is my police! A spark-sprinkling blow, a teeth-crushing blow, a cheekbone blow!.. And with such an attitude on his part, Obolt-Oblduev sincerely believes that the peasants who belonged to him treated him well: But, I will say without bragging, The man loved me! The landowner sincerely yearns for the times when he had unlimited power over the peasants. Having heard the bell ringing, he bitterly says: They are not ringing for the peasant! In the life of the landowners They call!.. Oh, life is wide! Sorry, goodbye forever! Farewell to landowner Rus'! Now Rus' is not the same!.. For him and his family, a lot changed after the abolition of serfdom:

It's a shame to drive through the countryside, A man sits - he won't move, It's not noble pride - You feel the bile in your chest. In the forest it’s not a hunting horn It sounds like a robber’s axe, They’re playing around!.., but what can you do? Who will save the forest!.. The fields are unfinished, The crops are not sown, There is no trace of order! Of course, Gavrila Afanasyevich’s feelings can be understood when he regrets the ruined estate:

My God!

Disassembled brick by brick

A beautiful manor house,

The extensive garden of the landowner,

Cherished for centuries,

Under the peasant's ax

He's all lying down, the man is admiring,

How much firewood came out!

The soul of a peasant is callous,

Will he think

Like the oak tree he has just felled,

My grandfather with his own hand

Planted it once!

What's under that rowan tree?

Our kids frolicked

And Ganichka and Verochka

Did you talk to me?

What's here, under this linden tree,

My wife confessed to me,

How heavy is she?

Gavryusha, our firstborn,

And hid it on my chest

Like a cherry reddened

Lovely face!..

Obolt-Obolduev is proud of his noble origin, the thought of work is offensive to him:

Work hard! Who did you think

I'm not a lapotnik peasant,

I am by God's grace

Russian nobleman!

Russia is not foreign

Our feelings are delicate,

We are proud!

Noble classes

We don't learn how to work.

I'll tell you without bragging,

I live almost forever

In the village for forty years,

And from the rye ear

I can’t tell the difference between barley

And they sing to me: “Work!” The landowner even finds an excuse for his idleness and the idle life of the entire nobility:

And if indeed

We misunderstood our duty

And our purpose

It’s not that the name is ancient,

Noble dignity

Willingly to support

Feasts, all kinds of luxury

And live by someone else's labor,

It should have been like this before

To say... We must pay tribute to Obolt-Obolduev - he admits his worthlessness:

I smoked God's heavens,

Wore the royal livery,

Wasted the people's treasury

And he thought for a century to live like this... Gavrila Afanasyevich is very proud of his noble origin, but his ancestors received the royal favor not for any services to the state, but by accident:

My ancestor Oboldui

Commemorated for the first time

In ancient Russian letters

Two centuries and a half

Back to that. It says

That letter: “To the Tatar

Talk to Obolduev

Good cloth was given,

Priced at two rubles:

Wolves and foxes

He amused the empress

On the day of the king's name day,

Released a wild bear

With his own, and Oboldueva

The bear ripped off... This meeting of the seven wanderers with Obolt-Obolduev, their remarks during his story indicate that the ideals of the masters are alien to the peasants. Their conversation is a clash of irreconcilable points of view. Phrases of wanderers, starting with the naive and simple-minded (“Forests are not reserved for us - we’ve seen all sorts of wood!”) and ending with the socially poignant (“A bone is white, a bone is black, And look, they’re so different—they don’t care! And they thought to themselves: “You knocked them down with a stake, why are you going to pray in the master’s house?..”, “Yes, you, landowners, had a much enviable life, you don’t have to die!”), open up to the reader that abyss, which exists between them and the masters.

Gavrila Afanasyevich, who has retained a humane attitude towards his serfs in his soul, understands that he depends on the peasants and owes his well-being to them. He yearns for the old days, but comes to terms with the abolition of the fortress region. But Prince Utyatin does not want to believe that he has lost power over his serfs. The image of this landowner is less sympathetic:

Thin! Like winter hares,

All white, and a white hat,

Tall, with a band

Made from red cloth.

Nose beak

Like a hawk

Mustache is gray and long

And - different eyes:

One healthy one glows,

And the left one is cloudy, cloudy,

Like a tin penny. Accustomed to power, he took the news of the Tsar’s Manifesto very painfully. Vakhlak peasants talk about it this way:

Our landowner is special,

Exorbitant wealth

An important rank, a noble family,

I've been weird and foolish all my life,

Yes, suddenly a thunderstorm struck...

He doesn’t believe it: the robbers are lying!

Mediator, police officer

I drove him away! fools in the old way,

Became very suspicious

Don't bow - he'll fight!

The governor himself to the master

I arrived: they argued for a long time,

The servants in the dining room heard;

I got so angry that by evening

Enough of his blow!

The entire left half

It bounced back: as if dead,

And, like the earth, black...

Lost for a penny!

It is known that it is not self-interest,

And arrogance cut him off,

He lost the mote. Seeing the peasants of the village of Vakhlaki, Pakhom called them heroes. But the author, with further narration, shows the humility and ignorance of the men. In the decision to “keep silent until the old man’s death” about the agreement with the heirs, the agreement to support the rumor that “that the landowners were ordered to turn back the peasants” is a lot from the previous humiliation and humility. The people—a hero and a hard worker—dooms itself to voluntary slavery. By this N.A. Nekrasov shows that the peasants have not lost faith in the possibility of reaching an agreement with the landowners, in the opportunity to benefit for themselves while maintaining the previous system of relationships. A striking example of this is Klim’s “foolishness” in front of the master:

Who should we listen to?

Whom to love? Hope

For whom?

We revel in troubles

We wash ourselves with tears,

Where should we rebel?

Everything is yours, everything is the master’s -

Our houses are dilapidated,

And sick tummies,

And we ourselves are yours!

The grain that was thrown into the ground

And garden vegetables,

And the hair is unkempt

To a man's head -

Everything is yours, everything is the master's!

Our great-grandfathers are in the graves,

Old grandfathers on the stoves

And in the unsteady little children -

Everything is yours, everything is the master's!

And again he said: “Fathers!

We live for your mercy,

Like Christ in his bosom:

Try it without the master

Peasant live like this!

Where would we be without gentlemen?

Fathers! leaders!

If we didn't have landowners,

We won’t make bread,

Let's not stock up on grass!

Guardians! Guardians!

And the world would have collapsed long ago

Without the master's mind,

Without our simplicity! It was written in your family to watch over the stupid peasantry, and for us to work, listen, and pray for the masters!” It is not surprising that after such words the old man is ready to talk for hours about his rights: And exactly: the Last One spoke for almost an hour! His tongue did not obey: The old man splashed with saliva and hissed! And he was so upset that his right eye twitched, and the left one suddenly widened and - round, like an owl's - spun like a wheel. The landowner remembered his noble rights, sanctified by centuries, Merits, the ancient name, Threatened the peasants with the Tsar’s wrath, if they rebelled, And firmly ordered, So that they don’t think about trifles, Don’t indulge in the estate, But listen to the masters! Having believed in the deception, the prince, broken by paralysis, continues his tyranny:

A spring carriage rolls through the village:

Get up! Down with the cap!

God knows what he'll pounce on,

Scolds, reproaches; with a threat

If he comes up, be silent!

Sees a plowman in the field

And for his own lane

Barks: and lazy people,

And we are couch potatoes!

And the streak is done,

Like never before a master

The man didn't work...

I found that the hay was wet,

He flared up: “The Lord’s good

Rot? I you, scammers,

I'll rot in corvée!

Dry it now!..”

...(The wanderers tried:

Dry senso!) The orders of the Last One are meaningless and absurd. For example, in order to improve the financial situation of the widow Terentyevna, who “begs from Christ’s alms,” the master ordered “to marry Gavrila Zhokhov to that widow Terentyevna, to fix the hut again, so that the fox and the fox could live in it and rule the tax.”

And that widow is nearly seventy,

And the groom is six years old!

Another order: “Cows

Yesterday we chased until the sun

Near the manor's yard

And so they mooed, stupid,

What woke up the master -

This is what the shepherds are ordered to do

Keep the cows quiet from now on!”

Another order: “At the watchman’s,

Under Sofronov,

The dog is disrespectful:

She barked at the master,

So drive the under away,

And we are guards to the landowners

The estate is assigned

Eremka!..” They rolled

Again the peasants laughed:

Eremka has been one since birth

Deaf and mute fool! The men treat the antics of the Last One with humor (“Well, laughter, of course!..”, “The rank is laughing again.”), but the consequences of the comedy played out are sad. The joke turned into disaster - Aran Petrov, the only person who dared to enter into open conflict with the crazy old man, died. He does not want to endure moral humiliation and throws it into Utyatin’s eyes:

Tsits! Nice!

Peasant souls possession

It's over. You are the last one!

The men explain the cause of Agap’s death this way:

Don't have such an opportunity

Aran would not die!

The man is raw, special,

The head is unbending

And here: go, lie down!

And they learn a lesson:

Praise the grass in the stack,

And the master is in a coffin! In three chapters of the poem: “About the exemplary slave - Yakov the Faithful”, “About two great sinners” and “Peasant sin”, images of landowners also appear. And only in the last of them does the master commit a good deed - before his death he gives freedom to his peasants. And in the first two, the theme of cruel mockery of the peasants again appears. All his life, from childhood, Polivanov mocked his faithful servant Yakov:

In the teeth of an exemplary slave,

Jacob the faithful

As he walked, he blew with his heel. Pan Glukhovsky is also not distinguished by virtue, and even boasts of his atrocities:

Pan grinned: “Salvation

I haven't had tea for a long time,

In the world I honor only a woman,

Gold, honor and wine.

You have to live, old man, in my opinion:

How many slaves do I destroy?

I torture, I torture and I hang,

I wish I could see how I’m sleeping!” The poem deals with the theme of the relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor. The author shows that the existing conflict between the landowner and the peasant cannot be resolved peacefully and raises the question of ways for the peasantry to reach freedom and happiness.

In search of happiness, the heroes of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” first of all turn to representatives of the upper class: the nobility and the clergy. On the road they meet a landowner from a neighboring village, talking about his life. This is how the image of Obolt-Obolduev appears in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by Nekrasov, and this image is far from unambiguous.

The very meaning of the surname Obolta-Obolduev tells the reader what kind of person this person is. “A fool - an ignoramus, an uncouth person, a blockhead” - this is the interpretation of this word provided by Dahl in his dictionary. Used as a proper name, it perfectly conveys the attitude of peasants in post-reform Rus' towards landowners. Obolt-Obolduev himself with his question “What did I study?” indirectly confirms the correctness of his last name. It is curious that Nekrasov does not invent it, but takes it from the genealogical books of the Vladimir province.

The landowner Obolt-Obolduev evokes mixed impressions. “Ruddy and plump”, with “valid manners”, who loves to laugh, he does not look like an evil person. His naive pride in his descent from the Tatar Obolduev can only evoke a good-natured smile. He himself preferred to treat the peasants like a father: “I attracted hearts more with affection.”

He recalls with bitterness the bygone times when on holidays he said Christ with the peasants, perceiving them as one big family, talked “brotherly” with the men returning from work and waited with innocent curiosity for their gifts: wine, jam and fish. Obolduev is not without a certain poetic trait in his character. His description of the times when the landowner was the sole master of his land is filled with sincere admiration for the beauty of the Russian land. Lakes, arable lands, reserved meadows, dense forests, the measured life of landowners’ estates and the unbridled daring of hound hunting, “knightly, primordially Russian fun” - this is what flashes before the reader’s eyes during Obolt-Obolduev’s story. His bitterness is quite sincere: he understands perfectly well that the old times will not return, and he regrets not so much his lost power as the lost greatness of Rus'.

Through life according to the landowners
They're calling!.. Oh, life is wide!
Sorry, goodbye forever!

This is how the landowner exclaims when he hears a distant ringing. We can say that in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” Obolt-Obolduev appears as a tragic hero.

But at the same time, Nekrasov does not let us forget about the other side of landowner life: their happiness was paid for by backbreaking peasant labor. No wonder the men listen to the landowner’s outpourings with a grin, exchanging glances. Indeed, it is enough to recall the description of the emaciated Yakim Nagoy for the “pot-bellied” gentleman to cease to evoke sympathy. And here the image of the specific Obolduev turns into a satirical, collective image of the landowner in general. This landowner was used to living at the expense of others: “he was littering the people’s treasury.”

Characteristics of Obolt-Obolduev in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”

nobility. The writer bases his characterization of these types on the point of view of a man. What did they see and how did inquisitive, meticulous men evaluate the nobility when meeting the landowners? The peasants met Obolt-Obolduev. Already the name of the landowner attracts our attention with its pointedness. In exchange for Nekrasov, the Oryol word obolduy (stunned), as V.I. Dal testifies, meant: “ignorant, uncouth, idiot” 15. But Nekrasov did not invent this surname. A family of landowners was “baptized” by it in some distant times. According to the “New Encyclopedic Dictionary” of Brockhaus and Efron, it was “an ancient Russian noble family... recorded in part V of the genealogical book of the Vladimir province.” Handwritten versions of the poem show that Nekrasov seeks to get closer to popular nicknames and enhances the ironic connotation of the surname. A double surname appears: first Brykovo-Obolduev, Dolgovo-Obolduev and, finally, Obolt-Obolduev.

While working on the image, Nekrasov carefully processed the vital material characterizing the typological essence of the nobility. I didn’t have to look far for an example. The poet's father, Alexey Sergeevich, was a colorful figure in landowner Russia. The method of treating serfs, passion for hound hunting, lordly ambition and much more make Obolt-Obolduev similar to Nekrasov’s father.

In the first of the landowners who appeared before the men, Nekrasov emphasizes the features that characterize the relative stability of the class. The hero is 60 years old. He is bursting with health, he has “valiant skills”, a broad nature (passionate love for earthly joys, for its pleasures). He is not without a certain poetry in his perception of Russian nature, its “beauty and pride.” The landowner speaks with inspiration about the “knightly, warlike, majestic view” of life, when one could have fun and roam “freely and easily.” He is not a bad family man and by his personal qualities he is not a cruel person, not a tyrant. The artist depicts his negative traits (“the fist is my police,” “whoever I want, I’ll execute,” etc.) not as personal character traits, but as class qualities, and therefore they become a more terrible phenomenon. In addition, everything good that the landowner boasts about depreciates and takes on a different meaning. The mocking, hostile attitude that arose between the peasants and the landowner is a sign of class discord. When meeting with the men, the landowner grabs his pistol. Obolt-Obolduev refers to his honest, noble word, and the men declare: “No, you are not noble for us, noble with a beating, a push and a punch, then it’s unsuitable for us!”

“Well, you bastard!” Then the poet wrote: “You are starting to be rude,” and in the final edition the ironic and helpless appeared: “Hey! What news!

two irreconcilable camps are in a state of unceasing struggle and are “calibrating” their strength. The nobleman still revels in the “family tree.” He is proud of his father, who grew up in an eminent Tatar family (a rich family close to the Dar family), admires the past of his mother (who also came from a noble background), but the landowner no longer feels the bitter irony of either what he himself is talking about, or from that assessments expressed by his discerning listeners. By the collision of two contrasting opinions, two assessments, Nekrasov emphasizes the impassable abyss. The lofty concept of “family tree” is contrasted with the everyday, humorous, peasant: “We saw every tree.” The solemn memory of ancient Russian letters, which indicated the father’s wealth and the opportunity to amuse the empress with the fight of bears “on the day of the Tsar’s name day,” is contrasted with a sarcastic, class-based one: “There are many of them scoundrels hanging around with bears even now.”

The delight of a nobleman, whose mother’s family is glorified in the chronicles for “trying to set fire to Moscow and plunder the treasury,” is countered by something as severe as a sentence: “And you, roughly speaking, come out of that tree like an apple? “The men said.”

The writer constructs the dialogue between the peasants and the landowner in such a way that both the people’s attitude towards the nobility and the new stage in the development of the peasants’ self-awareness become extremely clear to the reader. As a result of the conversation, the men understood the main thing: what does “white bone, scooping bone” mean and why “they have different things and honor.” And having understood this, the landowner’s conversation about how “I punished with love,” “I attracted hearts more with affection,” and on holidays, “the peasants were allowed to attend the all-night vigil at home,” is perceived by the peasants with mockery. Let it be to themselves, but they thought correctly: “You knocked them down with a stake or something, are you going to pray in the manor’s house?” To the words of the master: “A man loved me,” they contrasted the stories of the serfs “about their difficult trades, about foreign countries, about St. Petersburg, about Astrakhan, about Kiev, about Kazan,” where the “benefactor” sent peasants to work, and from where, the nobleman admitted , “on top of corvée, canvas, eggs and livestock, everything that the landowner had collected from time immemorial, voluntary peasants brought us gifts!”

The growth of political self-awareness of the peasants is accompanied by the display of the nobility, aware of their historical death. The artist creates a picture that convinces that such awareness was not the result of some personal, especially momentary, mood of an individual representative of the nobility, but a mood expressing the typical position of the class. The method of typing both social conditions and the mood of Obolt-Obolduev is a development of the techniques used by Nekrasov when depicting a representative of another basis of autocracy - the priest. The landowner's solemn story about the “good” life with his estate ends with an unexpectedly terrible picture. Let us remind you that the priest’s “laces” are filmed in the image of a black crying cloud. The landowner - a representative of earthly, material forms of slavery - also does not finish his speech about the “decorous” attitude towards the peasant. His “laces” are cut off by another force: the sounds of “heavenly music.”

earthly with the “spiritual”, heavenly, the landowner’s pathetic speech is interrupted not by natural phenomena (cloud, rain, sun), but by the phenomena of a church service: “Choo! death knell!.. Through the morning air those chest-aching sounds rushed.” In Kuzminskoye they buried the victim of drunken revelry - a man. The wanderers did not condemn, but wished: “Rest for the peasant and the kingdom of heaven.” Obolt-Obolduev took the death knell differently: “They are not ringing for the peasant! They call on the landowner’s life.” The grave premonitions of the ruddy landowner, who managed to drink vodka several times during a conversation with the men, have a historical basis. Obolt-Obolduev lives in a tragic time for his class. He has no spiritual, social relationship with his breadwinner. The great chain broke, and “... the man sits - he does not move, there is no noble pride - you feel the bile in your chest. In the forest it is not a hunting horn that sounds, but a robber’s ax.”

Nekrasov, in the type of Obolt-Obolduev, revealed the degree to which representatives of the noble class realized their historical death. While still relatively stable, a gap has clearly emerged between the economic, legal existence and social status of the class. The political consciousness of the peasantry, the growth of its organization, and the strength of resistance were so inconsistent with the legal and practical form of relations that the nobility morally and psychologically realized that they were defeated.

its own special fear, born of the consciousness of doom. Nekrasov depicts the uselessness and comicality of such undertakings in the chapter “The Last One.” This chapter is a logical continuation of the order of the nobility, as well as the characteristics of the Russian political self-awareness of the peasantry, which uses certain tactics in its struggle. The chapter “Last One” should therefore follow the chapter “Landowner”, remaining the head of the second part of the poem (as noted by Nekrasov in parentheses).